Facilities Manager Appointments for Workspace Group

About Workspace Group

For more than 30 years Workspace Group has been one of London's leading commercial property owners, providing flexible office, studio and industrial space to businesses across the capital. It manages a portfolio of more than 3.7 million square feet, serving over 4,000 customers across a diverse collection of properties, which it runs as a network of centres.

Maxwell Stephens has a long-standing partnership with Workspace, covering a range of Facilities and Property Management positions.

Our work with Workspace Group

• Facilities Manager, running a number of centres across the multi-site portfolio and reporting to the Head of Facilities.
• Support Facilities Manager, providing management cover across Workspace's southern London portfolio.

Facilities Manager, Multi-Site Portfolio

Workspace Group appointed us to recruit a Facilities Manager to keep a number of centres safe, compliant, well maintained and responsive to customers. Reporting to the Head of Facilities, the role covered day-to-day building operations, planned preventive and reactive maintenance, contractor coordination, health and safety compliance, Facilities-related site projects, FM budget control, leadership of Facilities staff, and relationships with customers and stakeholders.

In flexible commercial property that last point is not a soft extra. Occupiers are customers rather than long-lease tenants, and their experience of the building is largely their experience of the Facilities team. A manager who runs the plant well but handles people poorly costs the business commercially, which narrows the field to candidates who can evidence both.

We worked with Workspace to understand the operational requirements, the culture and the weight placed on customer service, then identified candidates with multi-site, technical FM, contractor management and customer-facing experience. They were assessed on technical and operational competence, maintenance knowledge, health and safety, supplier management, budgetary control, team leadership and customer service, with detailed interviews and reference checks.

We placed an experienced Facilities Manager who brought leadership, technical knowledge and a proactive approach. Across the portfolio that showed in closer control of planned and reactive maintenance, firmer contractor accountability, a close focus on compliance, tighter oversight of FM spend, stronger relationships with occupiers and clearer standards across the Facilities teams.

Support Facilities Manager, Southern London Portfolio

The Support Facilities Manager keeps operations running whenever permanent Building or Facilities Managers are unavailable, stepping into different locations across Workspace's southern portfolio, often at very short notice. Responsibilities included leading day-to-day building and facilities operations, planned and reactive maintenance, contractor coordination, acting as the contact for customers and occupiers, overseeing cleaning, security, waste and building services, monitoring Health & Safety compliance, reviewing service charge budgets and supporting Centre Managers.

That is an uncommon profile. Most Facilities Managers build their effectiveness on knowing one building and the people in it: where the isolation valves are, which contractor turns up, which occupier calls about everything. A cover role strips that away and asks for the same standard from day one.

Drawing on our knowledge of Workspace from previous campaigns, we searched for people with commercial building management experience who could operate across multiple locations, looking for customer and stakeholder skills, contractor management, Health & Safety knowledge, service charge awareness, CAFM experience and the confidence to integrate quickly into different teams. IOSH Managing Safely, NEBOSH and relevant FM certifications carried particular weight: someone arriving at an unfamiliar building needs a reliable framework for judging risk before they know the site.

We placed an experienced Support Facilities Manager who became a trusted member of the Workspace Facilities team, providing continuity of service across multiple locations whenever cover was needed.

Candidate testimonial:

"Working with Maxwell Stephens was an excellent experience from start to finish. They invested real time in understanding what I was looking for and provided outstanding support throughout the recruitment process. I always had the information I needed before interviews, and they continued to stay in touch even after I accepted the role to ensure everything was going well. Their professionalism and genuine care made a real difference, and I wouldn't hesitate to recommend them."

Why it worked

Both briefs are often filled from the technical end alone, on the assumption that customer service can be coached afterwards. In practice it rarely is. Workspace's occupiers are customers rather than tenants in the traditional sense, and a manager covering their building for a fortnight is still the person they judge the landlord by. Defining each search around that reality, rather than a standard Facilities Manager specification, produced shortlists that held up against the whole of each role.

If you are recruiting Facilities Managers or management cover across a multi-site commercial portfolio, get in touch with our team.